WORST CLASS: Jerricho Cotchery, Bradon Edwards and Santonio Holmes taunt Patriots at the end of the Jets' 28-21 win last week.Reuters

We sure get crazy fast, around here. George Steinbrenner dies and within minutes he has been rewritten, revised and recalled as the finest man ever to have lived (give or take a felony).

Bypassers and trespassers wouldn’t know that Steinbrenner regularly wrecked lives and careers on candy-store impulse, because he felt like it, because that’s the bully’s sense of sport. But why ruin a good obit?

We’ve seen much the same since the Jets beat the Colts in the AFC wild-card round. Whamo! Blood rush to the brain, leaving no room for the intellect, which has been forced into exile, presumably in the feet. Suddenly, all is forgiven and forgotten, truths forbidden.

We’re as jingoistic as any college football yahoo in Norman, Okla., or Gainseville, Fla. If a Jets starter were to torture a roomful of kittens, well damn it, those kittens had it coming!

Let those who can still be honest with themselves be honest with themselves. If these Jets were the Bears, Ravens or Chargers, Jets fans would despise them.

And even those Jets fans whose rooting interests lie no deeper than the logo on the helmets — a Joe Benigno, for example — would concede that the word “class” is not applicable to this particular organization. “Yeah, but they’re our creeps,” becomes a handy rationalization and comfort.

Not that it matters, but I’m rooting for the Jets on Sunday, primarily because a win will thrill the Jets fans in my life, many of whom have waited 40 years for their guys to play in a Super Bowl.

And I don’t find the Steelers’ roster to be abundant in noble humanity, either. But given that standard, how many teams are easy to root for?

Yet it’s impossible not to know — or to forget and forgive — that so many of these devoted Jets fans were shoved out of this new PSL stadium because they were unwilling or unable to pay a ransom on top of an extortion for the seats and the tickets assigned to those seats — as if you can sell one without the other.

Even the Jets’ sale of PSLs was low, fraudulent, attached to bogus claims and even a since-convicted crook who very publicly pretended, with the Jets’ full indulgence, to have bought two tickets at auction for $415,000, when he didn’t have a dime. The NFL, eyes tightly closed, didn’t even have to look the other way.

The Jets’ approach to selling PSLs was strictly boiler room, targeting suckers. The club even assigned “The Voice” of the team, Bob Wischusen, to read ads claiming that the PSLs were very nearly sold out, so hurry — a lie the Jets told for over a year.

The team itself, well, its coach, Rex Ryan, performs as a professional slob; he has the act down. He can be very funny, very profane, eager to be seen and excused as a merry outlaw, head activities director at a Woody’s Camp for Naughty Boys. But as long as the Jets win — and not how they win or with whom they win — he fulfills the terms of his engagement.

This year the Jets loaded up on expendable talent, expendable because players had proven themselves social risks — bad guys — with previous teams.

Imagine, Antonio Cromartie, with nine small children by eight “baby mamas,” finds Tom Brady to be an expletive-hole. Santonio Holmes couldn’t play four games because he violated the NFL’s drug policy. The Jets treated Braylon Edwards’ DWI as if he had spilled a glass of milk.

Even the team’s sideline behavior was below reproach. The strength coach tripped and slightly injured a Dolphins player, a singular act that appeared to be part of a group plan.

And, of course, with the Jets now deep into the playoffs and with sensitivities higher than sensibilities, murder the messenger becomes a natural by-product.

CBS’ Jim Nantz, among the most gentlemanly and cautious sportscasters, had the audacity Sunday to speak a truth: Shonn Greene’s late-game TD “celebration” was an “absurdity” that ran counterproductive to the team’s goals. For this, Nantz was identified and bashed as anti-fun and anti-Jets.

Nantz is no more anti-anything than the official who correctly flagged Greene for “excessive celebration,” which wasn’t a natural celebration, at all, but a skit, an act of predetermined showboating and taunting.

That Phil Simms disagreed with Nantz, claiming there was no better time to celebrate, ignored the fact that Greene wouldn’t have been flagged had his celebration expressed genuine excitement. Besides, when is a good time for a pro to be penalized for acting like a fool?

I’d spoken with Nantz at length the day before the game, and our chat drifted toward on-field behavior.

He mentioned that a kid growing up today could only surmise that pushing and shoving after every play, muscle flexing and stomping around after every tackle, and self-smitten demonstrations after scoring or even running 2 yards for a first down, is the way the game is played, because that’s all a kid sees.

We can’t, after all, return kids to a place they never have been.

Nantz said he was sick of it. Sunday, he acted on his claim; he didn’t pander and he spoke his head and his heart, a rarity for sports TV. And only those who wanted to miss his point missed it, and instead chose to finger Nantz as a Jets hater.

But, one win from the Super Bowl, that’s how we roll here. Here, there and everywhere. Go Jets.

Living out his big Green Fran-tasy

Mike Francesa’s sustained rancor toward the Jets has little to do with the Jets and a lot to do with Mike Francesa.

This is a fellow who referred to the team’s late owner, Leon Hess, as “a senile old fool” — until 1997, when Hess hired Francesa’s semi-imaginary pal, Bill Parcells, as Jets coach and general manager. At that point, Francesa used this column (and this sucker columnist) to issue his “Kinder, gentler me” proclamation, while he flipped to respectfully refer to Leon Hess as “Mr. Hess.”

Slightly delusional, Francesa began to fancy himself the Jets general manager — or GM in waiting — even parading about in a Jets team jacket. While I didn’t notice whether “Staff” was embroidered on the front, so much for those stern, on-air lectures about fundamental journalism he delivers to the serfs at WFAN.

With Parcells’ departure, Francesa’s unrequited desire to run the team was spoiled, and it was back to knocking the Jets, especially when the team demonstrated colossal gall by not sucking up to him.

Still, he has not offered his official resignation as Jets GM. To that end, his door remains open.